Anjelica Huston (born July 8, 1951) is an American actress and former
fashion model.
Huston became the third generation of her family to win an
Academy Award, for her performance in
1985's
Prizzi's Honor, joining her father, director
John Huston, and grandfather, actor
Walter Huston. She later was nominated in
1989 and
1990 for her acting in
Enemies, a Love Story and
The Grifters respectively. Among her roles, she starred as
Morticia Addams in
The Addams Family (
1991) and
Addams Family Values (
1993), receiving Golden Globe nominations for both.
Life and career
Early life
Anjelica Huston is the daughter of director and actor
John Huston and Italian-American prima ballerina Enrica 'Ricki' Soma from New York. Huston spent most of her childhood in Ireland and
England. She grew up in Saint Clerns House near
Craughwell,
County Galway. In
1969, she began taking a few small roles in her father's movies. In that same year, her mother, who was 39 years old, died in a car accident, and Huston relocated to the United States, where she modeled for several years. She has an older brother Tony, a younger maternal half-sister named
Allegra, whom she called "Legs", and a younger paternal half-brother
Danny.
Acting career
Deciding to focus more on movies, in the late 1970s she seriously studied acting. Her first notable role was in
Bob Rafelson's remake of the
The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981). She costarred with
Jack Nicholson, with whom she had a romantic relationship since 1973. Later, her father cast her as the calculating, imperious Maerose, daughter of a Mafia don whose love is scorned by a hit man (Nicholson again) in his film adaptation of
Richard Condon's Mafia-satire novel
Prizzi's Honor (1985). Huston won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance, making her the first person in Academy Award history to win an Oscar when a parent and a grandparent had also won one.
Huston thereafter worked prolifically, notably earning another Oscar nomination for her portrayal of an iron-willed con artist in
Stephen Frears'
The Grifters (1990), this time for Best Actress. A sentimental favorite was her performance as the lead in her father's final film, an adaptation of
James Joyce's
The Dead (1987).
She then became
Morticia Addams, in the hugely successful 1991 movie adaptation of
The Addams Family, and later in 1993, revived that role of Morticia for the follow-up sequel:
The Addams Family Values.
Anjelica also starred in the 1998 Hollywood blockbuster,
Ever After: A Cinderella Story alongside
Drew Barrymore and
Melanie Lynskey as the Baroness Rodmilla De Ghent. She also starred in two highly lauded
Wes Anderson films,
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) and
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), as well as appearing in 2007's
The Darjeeling Limited and voicing a character in the upcoming
Fantastic Mr. Fox, Anderson's first time directing an animation film.
Directing career
Huston has recently expanded her horizons, following in her father’s footsteps in the
director’s chair. Her first directorial credit was
Bastard Out of Carolina (
1996), followed by
Agnes Browne (
1999), in which she both directed and starred, and then
Riding the Bus with My Sister (
2005).
Political activism
In 2007, Huston led a letter campaign organized by the
U.S. Campaign for Burma and
Human Rights Action Center. The letter, signed by over twenty five high-profile individuals from the entertainment business, was addressed to the United Nations Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon and urged him to "personally intervene" to secure the release of
Nobel Peace Prize recipient
Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma.
[United States Campaign for Burma. Hollywood: UN Should Act on Burma. United States Campaign for Burma's homepage, 6 September 2007. Received 6 November 2007.]
Huston has donated $2000 to Democratic political candidates John Kerry and Dick Gephardt.
Huston has recorded a public service announcement urging her colleagues in Hollywood to refrain from using great apes as slave labour in television, movies and advertisements.
[ [1]. PETA Files, 18 February 2009. Retrieved 21 February 2009.]
Personal life
While working as a model in her teens during the late 1960s, Huston had a relationship with photographer
Bob Richardson, who was 23 years her senior.
[movies.yahoo.com/movie/contributor/1800020829/bio] She was also involved with actor
Ryan O'Neal. Her on-and-off relationship with actor
Jack Nicholson spanned from 1973 to 1990 and included an incident in which she became a witness for the prosecution at
Roman Polanski's 1977 trial regarding the rape of a 13 year old girl in Nicholson's home.
[Polanski arrested in connection with 1970s sex charge] Her testimony, in which she arrived unexpectedly at the residence she had just recently shared with Nicholson, was used to place Polanski definitively in the bedroom with the victim.
[books.google.com/books?lr=&id=ZkjtLnkozWQC&dq=roman+polanski+anjelica+huston+rape&q=+anjelica+huston+who+place#search_anchor]
On May 23, 1992, she married sculptor
Robert Graham Jr.. The couple lived in
Venice, California until his death on December 27, 2008. She has never had children and states that she does not regret it.
She owns a ranch in
Three Rivers, California, just east of
Visalia, which she visits often.
Filmography
Television awards
Emmy Award nominations
Golden Globes
